Snowfall on a songbird's wing
by Ithurielistic
Summary: Hitsugaya muses on what has been lost, and what is left in the aftermath of a planet-defining war. AU One-Shot.


_This is a depressing AU that isn't canon-compliant, although it could be set after the end of the Anime failrly well. Also, this is a one-shot but I could continue it and explain things furtherif I got enough requests! Hope you enjoy!_

Toshiro had thought it was over. That perhaps the Soul Society had reached something as close as 'peace' as they could manage, and that perhaps it could be enough. Perhaps, he thought, they were close to something like freedom. Toshirowas as naive as he was young, much as he hated to admit it.

His thin shoulders shook slightly, bathed in twilight. It was bitterly cold even for one such as he, and his dark thoughts brought the chill closer to his bones. His sword was an icy presence across his spine.

He blinked up at the moon. A haunted glare danced off of its crescent surface and flung itself into space, like ribbons of ephemeral light.

Was peace even attainable for creatures such as they? Toshiro let a frown twist his features into something uglier. He had degraded reapers into animals in his own mind. Matsumoto would tell him to "Lighten up, Taichou!"

Unfortunately, she wasn't here to cheer him up, if it could be called that. She was in the Soul Society, trying to quell the rebellions. The anarchy, the blood, the death.

The Soutaichou had fallen, and suddenly they were like animals, grasping for his title and power like wolves fighting over bloody morsels. There were a few, like him, who tried to be voices of reason.

It hadn't been violent at first.

Mere disagreements. They were still _friends_. It had been more political than anything else.

"Am I worth it?" Toshiro wondered, asking the thin slip of moon. It didn't answer. "I'm falling," he thought. "I've fallen beyond what I can bear."

He looked down at where his right arm should have rested across his legs, and saw nothing but empty space.

Toshiro couldn't remember who had thrown the first blow. If anything, that should be a testament to his state of mind. He couldn't remember.

He'd tried to stop the violence, but he only placed himself in the midst of a war he hadn't even known was brewing.

Something happened. The sky had rushed by, lit with screams of war. Days.

Loyalty to one's division was one of the things the Soul Society prized most, but in the end, it was their downfall. Divisions became sides.

He could still feel his fingers moving, curling and uncurling. Sometimes they clenched so tightly it was torturous, and Toshiro would have to squeeze his eyes shut and repeat to himself that it wasn't real.

It was severed at the shoulder.

He'd had to change the orientation of the sheathe on his back so that he could draw his blade with his left hand. It didn't matter all that much, but it was reassuring in a hollow sort of way.

The air trembled, and ripped open space beside him, a thrumming void at his side appearing like darkness. It was a set of doors, which slid open tiredly.

"Taichou."

Matsumoto.

Toshiro turned his head and studied the woman leaning on the doorframe. the carefree aura that usually followed her was absent, and in its place was weariness. Her hand was cradled protectively over her left side, and her body seemed to curl around it defensively. She looked like a wounded feline. Her face was slack.

"Is it over?" he said, voice hollow.

"I've come to take you home." There was a melodious sadness that whispered in her voice. It wreathed her face with a habitual weariness.

Toshiro extended his hand toward her, and Matsumoto enveloped it in her own, larger one. It was warm and rough with scars and callouses. He stood unsteadily with her help, still off-balance from a sudden lack of weight on one side. He didn't know if he could ever get used to walking again, let alone fighting.

"Is there anything left?" he asked. Hyorinmaru squirmed like an icy serpent in his mind. He didn't want to hear it either. There was silence for a moment, as if Matsumoto knew he didn't really want an answer. Or perhaps she didn't want to say it, because that would make

Matsumoto's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Only us." Her whisper was there one second and gone the next, an ephemeral moment of crushing emptyness.

Toshiro followed her into the void, and it winked shut behind them without a sound. 


End file.
